By Lance Miccio,
 
Some years back when I had just graduated College in the UK and returned to the East Coast in the USA, I was the working part of a business called “Sunday News.” I always liked the name as it said what we did, which was selling Sunday newspapers on Sunday. And not just one Sunday paper…we sold all Sunday newspapers: The Herald Tribune, The New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle…you get the point.
 
We also sold, as a matter of convenience, coffee, espresso, cigars and the like for our Sunday customers, who were not interested in the paper but wanted to have a coffee and a place to wait before the next film started at the Cinemaplex less than 200 feet away.
 
They were mostly 13- to 16-year-old teenagers (a very sought-after demographic, mind you) whose parents dropped them off to see a new G-rated animated film…or so the parents thought.
 
Nothing sinister would be occurring here, or maybe not to the naked eye.
 
I must fast-forward to the point where I am now in my career, as a producer whose focus is creating and marketing projects. I use the technology at hand to extrapolate and research the demographics of who would watch the program, documentary or feature film being created. A very time-consuming practice with about the same results as an alchemist…and it takes hard work.
 
Seeing my struggles, another producer I know suggested to me, “Why don’t you just read the box office numbers from the trades and do a cross reference to the same type of project.” Fair enough…right? Wrong!
 
The numbers are wrong and I’d like to explain why they’re wrong. But first we must go back to Sunday News….
 
I asked my coffee customers, “What are you going to see? A Bug’s Life??”
 
A scowl, followed by, “No dude; Hostel II.”
 
“Hostel II,” I thought, “but Dude, you’re only 14 and everyone with you is 14; what about PARENTAL guidance?”
 
I asked how, and he told me. “Easy man; we buy tickets for whatever is rated G and then we go in and see what we want,” …heart-warmers, like SAW I through V, The Hills Have Eyes I and II, Hostel I, II, III, IV, Texas Chainsaw Massacre I, II, III….
 
I asked, “How about the guy who takes the tickets as you go in?” (That’s the brilliant security strategy the theaters have in place. It’s been working for 50 years so why mess with it, ’cause it works, right?) Wrong again.
 
The theaters did away with the two-tier security to save money, or to have the employee do something useful, like serve $9 popcorn. Now it’s just some guy outside collecting money (they still need him or her) but not the other guy inside making sure you go into your assigned, paid-for ticketed seat. So basically, a 14-year-old teenager buys a G-rated ticket for A Bug’s Life and goes to see SAW V.
 
The result, besides the obvious damage to society, is that the box office cash goes to A Bug’s Life and the buyer goes to SAW. The demographics show that the animated movies are the way to the big bucks, so production companies make more and more animated films. To keep pace, there must be more slasher, mutant, and killer-cannibals-who-have-factories-of-death movies to match each animated output.
 
I thought about this and put it to the test, as a few Goth kids might be the exception. For two years in two separate Sunday News coffeehouses, I made it a point to ask every person I could who was not old enough to see a film without parental guidance if they were going to see Bug’s Life or Over the Hedge or Madagascar.
 
The answers were all the same. “Dude! Hostel, Saw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
 
My old journalist brain then asked, “Why would the slasher/cannibal producers let this happen?” The producer side of my brain answered, “Easy peazy lemon squeezie!” Merchandise, video game branding, heavy metal music intros, and maybe…just maybe…the production companies are making both genres of film?!
 
So when someone tells me box office numbers don’t lie, I ask them if they have time to sit down for a cup of coffee…. It takes a while to convince them of the deceptive relationship between Finding Nemo and Friday the 13th.
 
Lance Miccio
July 15th 2009